"The curse of me and my nation is that we always think things can
be bettered by immediate action of some sort, any sort rather than no
sort."
—Plato (Greek, 427-347BC)
Word
for the day
Asomatous (adj)
Having no material body; incorporeal.
Malice
towards none
President requests MPs to do
their job!
Did someone told MPs -
what's their job!
First random
thought this morning
After the Supreme Court became the tyrant mother-in-law of BCCI,
the Kerala High Court has dictated that female devotees cannot enter the
Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Thiruvanthanpuram wearing Chudidar salwars. 10 Days
ago, a bureaucrat, KN Satheesh, had allowed churidars to be worn in the temple.
Are you wondering why I am discussing these frivolities this early
morning?
Well that is exactly the point!
In search of solutions - 6
Indian markets and economy have always surprised the experts and
investors alike. Many investors are attracted towards the fabled India story,
given the favorable demography and abundance of natural resource. But most of
them fall short of their own expectations.
Despite showing resilience to many external shocks; many rounds of
liberalization, stable democratic administration, consistent and positively
evolving policy framework, Indian economy has not been able to enter the orbit
of sustainable high growth.
Though many things have changed dramatically in past one decade,
but we are far from rising above the colonial setup - in which we supply cheap
resources (now notably skilled workers) to the global markets and provide a
large captive market for their final produce. We welcome polluting industries
of developed nations and happy to lower our compliance standards for a few
dollars more.
Before discussing anything about economic solutions, it is
therefore important to assimilate the economic problem of the country.
Understanding the economic problem
Have you ever wondered:
·
Despite having a rich culinary tradition for
centuries, millions of connoisseur consumers, and thousands of great eateries –
why we could not create a McDonald, Dominos or Pizza Hut in India?
·
Despite having over 2000yrs of rich tradition of
fashion, fabric manufacturing, dress designing and abundant raw material
availability why no Indian textile or fashion brands figures prominently in
global fashion and textile industry?
·
Coke quit India in 1977-78, leaving behind all
manufacturing facilities, customers with taste for soda based drinks,
distribution and marketing channel and sales infrastructure. For 14yrs Indian
manufacturers had no competition whatsoever, till Pepsi and Coke re-entered
India. Why did Campa cola, Parle and Duke not survive the competition from
Pepsi and Coke even for a decade?
·
Despite being one of the oldest civilization,
tradition of living and networking in communities, spending considerable time
in chaupals and doing Adda till late night, availability of
tremendous IT skills – no Indian thought of creating Facebook – an e-chaupal
with over US$340bn in market cap.
·
Despite slavery of many centuries, why we still
depend on those very foreigners for supply of equipment, arms and ammunition
for our armed forces?
·
Why failing to win an Olympic gold medal is a
subject of national shame; failing to get nomination in Oscars is subject of
national disappointment, but not getting a single Nobel for mathematics,
science or literature post independence does not evoke any regrets or
discussion? Remember, we always proudly claim ourselves to be pioneers in
fields of mathematics, physics, astrophysics, metallurgical & medical
sciences etc.Why we derive pride from the success of emigrated Indians who quit
their motherland to take foreign citizenship?
·
Despite being the largest producer of milk, and
huge surplus food grain stock, why India is bracketed with some poorest third
world countries in terms of child malnutrition?
·
Why an average Indian male feels proud in being
sexist when our religion, culture, and traditions propound supremacy of
feminine power (The Mother Supreme)?
·
Why an average Indian feels proud in being
racist when our religion, culture, and traditions preach universality of human
(Vasudeva Kutumbakam)?
·
Why we Indians love to celebrate our Jugaad
mindset, which reflects poorly on almost every aspect of the socio-economic
life in India. This has severely impacted the pursuit of excellence, a hall
mark of Indian art, culture, engineering, architecture, industry till 19th century,
at least. Today, “Quality” is something India and Indians are not particularly
known for globally. This ‘jugaad’ mindset has also doggedly constricted the
vision of an average Indian entrepreneur. Except for a handful of Indians, most
of whom have the benefit of studying and/or working overseas, not many have
thought about scalable business models. Even a large number of so called
knowledge business businesses and modern retail are blatantly modeled on the
popular global models.
·
Almost all the popular realty TV shows; an
overwhelming proportion of music scores; and popular cinema is poorly and
blatantly copied from the west.
These are some of the inquisitions that may help us in
understanding the economic behavior of Indian population and also highlight the
contours of our economic problem…to continue on Tuesday
(PS: I have raised these issues many times earlier, almost in the
same words. Hence it is natural that readers find it repetitive. However, given
the relevance of the subject, in my view, I do not mind the reiteration)
No comments:
Post a Comment